The Prize (37 page)

“I don't know why I was driven to paint. I grew up in a trailer park. I sort of felt like the images and colors ran away from me if I didn't try and capture them.” Edward liked her immediately.

The screen flashed to one of her pieces. “Incredible,” Edward said. “Congratulations.”

“Hey, thanks,” April twanged.

They stood in front of their chairs, waiting for the guests still staggering in from cocktail hour. A woman draped in Ferragamo brushed past their table. A stream of women dressed in ballgowns crowned with ornamental glitter, with plunging necklines and feather boas, traipsed past. A group of Japanese investment bankers congregated at the bar. An artist couple bent on making a statement, he in long dreadlocks and she in a snakeskin dress so tight it looked painted on, took their seats at a table next to them. An artist who showed in a trendy new gallery in Bushwick (Edward had read about her) tried to insert herself into their conversation by asking Edward if he ever made studio visits. Each finger on her hand had nail polish in a different primary color.

“It's quite a scene, isn't it,” Edward said to April, after he managed to dodge the conversation with the artist from Bushwick.

April was dressed in a simple black frock with a red rose tucked into the braid of her blonde hair. “It sure is,” she said. “I'm ready to head back to the sticks. I could never make art here.” She spoke loud enough for Leonard to hear her. “That's why I have Leonard.”

“You're in good hands.”

“That's what Leonard says about your artists.”

He glanced over at the Mayweather and Darby group, two or three tables away. There they were—the great and famous art couple. Agnes looked radiantly understated, not too beautiful or overly glamorous. She was dressed in tailored slacks and a sleek satin jacket with a soft camisole underneath, her red hair pushed back with a velvet headband. On one side of her was Nate—she clutched his arm. He looked slightly beleaguered, unshaven, perhaps having partied all night, the old guard still trying to hold onto the fort. Planted on the other side of her, Savan leaned back in his seat wearing a broad grin. Nate leaned in to whisper in Agnes's ear. She laughed and kissed him openly on the mouth. Nate rose, loosened a cigarette from the pack he took from his breast pocket, and wandered outside the tent.

Edward's eye caught May's. A yellow and pink diamond necklace circled her neck. She was dressed handsomely in one of her pastel Chanel suits. Her knuckly fingers slipped over her champagne flute and she carefully brought it to her lips. She received his look with an awkward nod and turned to chat with Cynthia, their publicist, who sat beside her. Edward noticed some people at another table look at him and titter behind their wineglasses. Maybe wondering why he wasn't at May's table.

He heard voices coming from the area of the mostly vacant catering tent—the waiters were on the floor briskly serving the entrees. Two men in tuxes were engaged in animated conversation. One leaned over a tray and, using a rolled-up dollar bill, sniffed back a line and then passed the bill to the other. It was Nate, husband of the favorite, and Frederick, chair of the prize committee, and protégé and ass-kisser of the great artist. Edward shook his head. What was to come was inevitable.

He stepped outside the tent, lit up a cigarette, and took it in. Waiters moved in and out. Dishes clashed. Edward looked back and caught Nate's eye. Nate gave him a provocative smile. Edward nodded, turned, stamped his cigarette butt on the ground, and walked away.

He wandered back inside the main tent and sat back down at Leonard's table. Flipped through the program. Sipped his wine. Nate in his ridiculous white scarf and slight paunch strolled back in and made his way through the narrow aisles between the tables with just enough bravado to make sure he was noticed. He took his seat next to Agnes, pinched his nostril, and then slid his hand down Agnes's back and under her jacket, claiming her like a possession before kissing her neck. She smiled at him nervously in return.

Edward glanced back toward the wing of the tent and watched Frederick Jackson lean against a pillar in an attempt to compose himself. He took the speech out of his jacket pocket and approached the podium.

Edward sat back in his chair and prepared himself. He took a deep breath and awaited the performance.

Across the room he spotted Julia. She looked elegant in a spring silk dress, her hair styled in waves around her open and radiant face. Next to her was a man with a firm chin and wide forehead. He watched Julia touch the man's arm and a wave of emotion swept over him. The lights dimmed; everything was becoming clear.

Fredrick announced the prize recipient and the audience gasped. Still caught up thinking of Julia, he looked around to see April push herself up from the table. He was stunned. The first person whose glance he found was Julia, and she looked back at him and grinned.
Applause filled the room. April kissed her husband, gave Leonard a hug, and threaded her way to the podium.

“Holy crap,” she boomed, and the audience broke out in laughter. Edward glanced over at Leonard. He nodded approvingly. His eyes skated toward the Mayweather and Darby table. Savan's face had fallen. Edward peered at Agnes—he couldn't help himself—and amid the applauding and cheer and commotion, for the first time since that day at her studio he caught her eye. Really caught her. She was clearly shaken. And in that one moment he saw in her the fear and desperation he remembered from when he first signed her. Then, aware she was being observed, she masked her hurt feelings. Edward looked away. He was not one to gloat. He saw Agnes get up, say a few words to May and Savan, her hand clutched in Nate's. Standing, she looked gaunt and thin, as if she might break.

During the champagne reception, the guests spilling against one another, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Julia.

“It looks like it turned out to be a good night for you after all.”

He nodded. In her glow he saw that something was different. She seemed complete to him.

Frederick Jackson, with the right amount of scruffy stubble to project a faux-manly look, came by and grabbed Julia by the arm and kissed her on each cheek.

“It's been an age. We have to correct that.” He smiled and his big teeth gleamed like a horse's.

“You know Edward, don't you?”

Edward nodded and the two shook hands.

“April Stillman,” Julia said. “Why April? I mean, I love her work, but—”

“You know I can't say,” Frederick said, taking Julia's hand to his lips to kiss it. “The judges' discussions are privileged. But I'll give you this,” he said, raising his head. “You know what Abramović said in her manifesto. You said it yourself, you know, back when we were together.” He took a sip of his champagne. “An artist should not fall in love with another artist.” He slipped his hand from hers and winked. “April Stillman. She's fantastic. She's a game-changer. Even Nate thinks so,” Frederick said, before walking away.

“What did he mean about Abramović?” Edward said, after he left.

“It's what I thought. Nate couldn't stand it if Agnes won the prize.”

He searched for Agnes and Nate in the crowd. Nate was leading her by the hand as they walked briskly away from the festivities and toward the runway to exit the tent. Had Nate turned Agnes against him because he feared her work might flower under Edward's direction? Or was it for the money? By making the deal to stay, she'd managed to squeeze them for a larger percentage. Or was it her fear that had undone her? What difference did it make? He shook his head and sighed.

“You're with Roy tonight, aren't you?”

Julia nodded her head in agreement. “He's over there waiting. He hates these affairs, but every once in a while he tolerates them for me. We're doing better.”

“Then we haven't really hurt anyone, have we?”

“Haven't we?” Her eyes filled and some unsaid thought passed between them. He watched as she stepped away.

18 NEW YORK

H
E
'
D HAD ENOUGH
of the art world, but once alone after the awards ceremony and a nightcap with Leonard and April, melancholy descended as he walked through the cool and deserted streets, the lights turned off in the restaurants, gates pulled down over the shops, to the hotel he'd booked earlier—this time a small boutique hotel—knowing he'd miss the last train. He struggled with the room key and pushed open the heavy door to where the king-size bed with its arranged stiff pillows greeted him. He sank into its sterile comfort.

Throughout the long night he barely slept. His mind flashed intermittently to Holly and Tom at the barn and to other occasions when the two of them had been together, looking for some trace of the intimacy he now believed they shared—he hated the way Tom always cupped Holly's face when he greeted her, calling her “hon.” He would have to ride it out, the way he believed Holly had—he was almost sure she suspected something—hoping she'd come back to him. He thought about their marriage. For twenty years he had lived with a woman and he'd never thought his love for her would change and then they had a child and their love deepened and they wanted for this child everything they imagined they should want for a child, when in fact their own childhoods had been imperfect. He thought that all the long years of Annabel's childhood they had set a path to
make sure her life was not like either of theirs and in doing so they had lost a certain thread with each other, and then everything fell apart and he'd betrayed her. It gutted him. What it meant and how deeply he would be punished for it he was unsure, because in fact he was certain he would and certain too of how little he knew of Holly just then and he hoped that if their marriage was strong, they might endure this bump in the road, because it occurred to him that though it was a horrific time when everything had slipped and morphed into a shape and form he was unfamiliar with, it was over—everything as he knew it had changed and not changed. It was uncanny. He hoped he wasn't deluding himself. He didn't know anymore. He would dig his heels in. He would not let go of his end. He would be better.

The last time he looked at the clock it was five in the morning. His alarm blared at seven, after he'd finally fallen into a deep sleep, and he could barely drag himself from bed. The room service tray with its picked-over burger and oil-drenched fries, ketchup jelled on the plate, and two empty miniatures of vodka from the minibar greeted him. The state of the room, in its bleak, trashed beauty, brought him back to the present. The entire bloody year he'd been in some kind of demented fog.

He walked briskly to the gallery hoping the fresh air would revive him. He kept his door half shut, closed his blinds, not wanting to greet or see any of his colleagues. He took out the morning paper from his bag and looked in the arts section. There was a photo of April Stillman on the front page. “Outsider Artist Takes The Prize.” He read the piece.

Stillman's visuals, made out of R&W hamburger wrappers, bottle caps, soda cups, and motel signs, combine elements
of assemblage and construction and straddle figuration and abstraction. It isn't postmodern. It is of the moment. She is best known for her large, clumsy-looking sculptures made out of materials found in junkyards. “Going into a junkyard is like entering an art store filled with hundreds of different kinds of paint. It offers endless possibilities. I want to make shapes that can't be described.” The images Stillman evokes, defined by her Southern background, are often banal, but unlike the splashy work of Nate Fisher, which also draws upon popular culture, April Stillman's work gets under the skin. You walk around her pieces and you can't get away from them. They don't exist simply as snapshots in the mind; they fill you. “People see what they must see,” she said of her work. “Nothing can ever be fully known or held. It's all fluid.”

The work melded beauty and ugliness into its own form of authenticity. It was completely its own and could have been made by no other. He must have it for the gallery, he thought. He put the paper down and began doing numbers. May peered in past his half-open door and he motioned for her to enter. She looked at him uncomfortably and then, to clear the tension, she began to laugh. A smile sprang to his lips and he laughed too.

“I owe you an apology,” she offered with genuine warmth after the laughter stopped. She was dressed in a knit dress that clung to her bony frame, a string of gray pearls dangling from her neck, with matching oversized earrings and gold bangles clanging on her thin wrists. Wealth could mask disappointment, but not completely.

“I appreciate that. This year hasn't been pleasant.”

“I know it hasn't. I should have listened to you.”

“Tell me. Last night—how did Agnes take it?”

“Not well. She told Alex she felt let down and quickly left the table. First thing this morning Reynolds called to say they're leaving the gallery.”

He shook his head. “It doesn't surprise me.”

“She blamed us for not getting the prize. Something about us not doing enough publicity to curry the judges' favor. Savan having neglected her.”

“Of course she did,” Edward said.

“Even faux marble eventually loses its shimmer. She dumped Savan, too. He's clearing out. He's not the type who stays around to clean up the damage. It's not his style.” She remained quiet for a moment and then leaned toward the spreadsheet sprawled over his desk.